


Blurred at the Edges

by nhpw



Category: Tron - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhpw/pseuds/nhpw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years after Kevin Flynn disappeared, Alan remembers one night, one visit to the Grid, and one move he can never take back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blurred at the Edges

The truth is, Alan Bradley knows that Kevin Flynn is still alive.  He even has a pretty good idea of where Flynn might be.  But how does a man explain – without sounding like a complete nutcase – that Encom’s missing CEO was stuck inside a computer?  The very idea sounds ludicrous even to Alan. 

But, he suspects, it also has the benefit – or misfortune? – of being true.

Flynn had taken Alan there just once.  He’d taken him there to show him what he’d built, what _could_ be built – what the Grid could mean for things that weren’t possible in the real world.  It was a week before Alan married Lora, but it was no bachelor party, and he tends to look on it with regret.  It wasn’t much after that that Flynn had started to drift away, spending more time on the Grid, more time building his simulated empire, and Alan sometimes wonders if this was the start of it – if Flynn retreated more and more into his fantasy world because he just couldn’t deal with reality, and because he could have there all the things he couldn’t have here.  When Flynn first disappeared, Alan got that sinking feeling in his gut – the feeling that something was terribly wrong, that he knew where Kevin was but not how to get him back, that if he’d just pressed Flynn for more details on the how and why of the Grid… but he hadn’t.  And now guilt gnaws at him every day, keeping him awake at night, and the only thing he can think to do is try to give some semblance of a father to Kevin’s son.

And now things are very, very bad at Encom, and the only thing Alan can think to do is resign – but he’s promised Sam.  Sam is too young to run an empire, and so Alan has taken the reigns, trying mightily to keep control of the beast and failing at every turn.  As a last resort, he’s pulled half his stocks and invested the money in an underground movement, and his partner in that is the one other person who still believes. 

And at night, Alan clings to the memory of that last night.  Sometimes, it makes him cry – both for the memories and for what has happened to Encom in the wake of its CEO’s absence.  _I’m trying, Flynn.  I swear, I’m trying.  With Encom, with Sam… with your memory.  But I can’t do it all alone._

The last words slide unbidden across his mental processing center. 

_I miss you._

***

“What _is_ this place?”  Kevin could hear the awe in Alan’s voice, and it made him chuckle under his breath as he brought a firm hand down on Alan’s shoulder and looked up into the simulated sky.

“Heck of a thing, isn’t it?”  A proud smile lit his face as Alan continued to look around as though walking in a dream.  “Welcome to the Grid.”

“It’s amazing.”  Alan had wandered away, but now he turned to face his friend, eyes still shining in disbelief behind dark-rimmed glasses.  “You built all this?”  Flynn nodded, his face still bearing a smug smile.  “How?”

“Alan my friend… a good chef never reveals his secret recipe.”

“You can’t cook,” Alan responded absently as he turned a slow circle, taking it all in, still trying to wrap his brain around the what and where and how of it all.

Flynn chuckled quietly and waved Alan in a specific direction.  “Come on,” he said.  “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Alan’s wonder was cut with a sliver of confusion as he obeyed.  “There are other people here?”

“Not exactly.”  Flynn was walking with purpose now, and Alan added a little jog to his step to keep up.  “Come on,” he repeated.  “This way.”

They walked out of the structure – a virtual replica of Flynn’s Arcade, Alan realized – and into the beginnings of streets.  Alan could see the world taking shape around them – strings of code combining to form buildings and street lamps and sidewalks right before their eyes.  Flynn continued to be amused by Alan’s stunned reactions but kept up a quick pace, trusting Alan to follow.  They crossed a mostly empty expanse – only the primitive beginnings of streets were present, but Alan could see the possibilities for expansion – until they reached a lone structure that vaguely resembled, of all things, the Encom tower in its infancy. 

“Get ready to have your mind blown, man,” Flynn teased almost giddily, ushering his business partner inside.  The door closed behind them with a _whoosh_ of sound as Alan’s eyes focused on two figures inside an otherwise empty room.  “Alan,” Flynn’s voice said, and a gentle hand on his bicep jolted Alan out of his daze.  “This… is Tron.”

Alan couldn’t help but gasp.  “He looks just like me.”  He reached out with one arm as if to touch, but stopped just short of actual contact.  “This is remarkable!”

Flynn nodded in agreement.  “It’s a trip, huh?”  He gestured to the room’s fourth occupant.  “And this is my doppelganger, Clu.  They work together to maintain a perfect system.”

Alan’s eyes narrowed a bit at the second program.  There was a dark edge in his eyes that Alan couldn’t quite place.  He felt like Clu was sizing him up.  Where Tron appeared an innocent pup eager to serve his new master, Clu was more like a prowling junkyard dog, trying to decide if Alan deserved to keep all his limbs intact.  It made him shudder a bit, and he focused on Tron’s smiling face instead.

“You’re Alan-One?”  Tron sounded just as awed as Alan felt.

“I am.”

“You created me.”

“I did.”  Alan laughed a little.  “There’s so much I want to ask you, I don’t know where to start.  You… you protect the system?”

“You created me as a security program.  I fight for the Users.”

“Amazing.”  Again Alan reached out to touch, just to get his hands on something tangible, something to convince him this was actually happening, and this time he did touch, just barely, his fingers ghosting over the “T” squares on Tron’s chest.  Then he stepped back, shaking his head.  “Just… amazing.” 

It was surreal for Flynn, like watching Alan have a conversation with himself, circa five years ago.  But then, he supposed, the same was true of himself and Clu to any observer.  “What news, Programs?” Flynn asked now, and Tron turned away from Alan to issue a report.

“The system is functioning at capacity at this time,” he stated, and Alan couldn’t get over hearing his own voice come out of someone else.  His eyes fell on a brightly lit circle affixed to Tron’s back as the program turned away and he puzzled on it as he listened to the conversation.  “All expansion remains on schedule.”

“Good, good.  Any viruses wreaking havoc on the Grid since I was here last?”

“Just one.  He’s been repurposed appropriately,” returned Clu.

“You see,” Flynn said to Alan, gesturing to the two programs, each with one open-palmed extended hand, “The perfect system.  Thank you, Programs.  Continue your subroutines as usual.  I’ll check in with you again before we leave.”

Tron and Clu departed, and Flynn watched them go like a proud father.  “Heck of a thing, isn’t it?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”  Flynn settled behind a desk, and Alan, after a brief pause, took the chair on the other side of it.

“They’re like brothers,” Flynn continued, still grinning broadly as he folded his hands behind his head and kicked his feet up on the desk between them.  “Consider them like Wilber and Orville Wright, setting out to build something no one’s ever seen before.”

Alan got the impression from the brief encounter that they were more like Cain and Abel – but he said nothing.  Flynn was just so damn proud of it all, Alan wouldn’t dare spoil that.  “What’s with the round circuitry on Tron’s back?”

“Ah.  That’s his identity disc.  Every Program has one.  It carries all the code – their DNA, you might say.  Any updates, everything the Program does and learns goes on that disc.  Even I have one.”  Flynn reached back to remove something Alan hadn’t noticed until now and handed it off.  “Here.  See?”

The disc felt light in Alan’s hands, almost the same size and weight as a Frisbee.  He hefted it a few times before tossing it back to Flynn.  “So if the Programs’ discs carry their code, everything they know, everything they learn… what’s on yours?”

“Privileged information, man.”  But there was a bit of a serious look in his eyes as he spun the disc between two fingers.  “This… this is like a key.  Everything about the Grid is on this thing.”  He reached around his back to push it back into place.  “If a person really wanted to destroy and corrupt everything being built here… this is what they’d need to do it.”    

Alan listened and nodded and tried to absorb everything Flynn was saying, but it was so much to wrap his brain around, trying to fathom what all this meant, the possibilities for technological advances… and how it was all even possible.  He had million questions, but one stood out from the rest.  “Why, Flynn?  I mean, why… all this?”

Flynn shrugged in that way he always did when he didn’t want to admit something had touched a nerve.  “Because I could?”  It sounded more like a question of his own than a reply.  When Alan’s only response was the raise of one skeptical eyebrow, Flynn softened and sighed.  “You know, I brought you here to show you a good time, man.  Not to get all gushy.”

“And yet.” 

“I can’t believe you’re marrying her.”

It came out of nowhere so fast and hard that Alan could swear he got whiplash from the words.  “So that’s what this is about?”  He stood, and the incredulous look he’d been wearing since they stepped onto the Grid gained an edge of angry fire.  “Look, I know you guys had a thing, all right?  I get that you might even have loved her.  But she—“

“It’s not about her,” Flynn cut him off, and he was looking away but Alan couldn’t help burning a hole in the other man’s head with his eyes.  “It’s about you.”  When he made eye contact with Alan again, there was unmistakable guilt in his eyes.  “Do you know that anything you want here on the Grid is yours to have?  You could stay here for twenty years – even longer – and never want for anything.”

“But it’s _not real_ ,” Alan tried.  “It’s all digital.  Created and maintained by Users on the other side of the screen.  And that means all it would take is one malicious User to come along and wipe out everything here, including you.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Oh?”

“I told you, the only way to make Master changes here is with my disc.  That means someone with malicious intent would have to get his hands on it.  Tron and Clu do an excellent job of maintaining this place; they wouldn’t let that happen.”

Alan’s incredulous look was back, and now he added a sharp laugh to accompany it.  “So the two of them together are smart enough to keep the system running, to circumvent any code programmed by a human being who wants to shut it down?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty well what I’m saying.”

“And that doesn’t scare you just a little?”

Flynn sighed.  “I didn’t bring you here to argue.”  He stood now, too, and came out from behind the desk to stand facing his partner.  “I brought you here to—to show you.  I thought you’d be impressed.  Proud, even.”

“I am, believe me.  I’m blown away.”

“I wanted you to know that the world… the world doesn’t always have to be the way it is out there.  Sometimes it can be like it is in here.  A digital Garden of Eden.”

“But it’s _not real_.”  Somehow the intonation was exactly the same as when he’d said it minutes before, but it came out quieter, sadder.

And then the gap between them closed, and Alan’s breath hitched.  “Flynn…”

But he couldn’t stop it.  Flynn leaned in and kissed him, a warm, soft invitation, and Alan found himself accepting it, and then returning it, not fighting Flynn’s tongue as it probed his mouth.

It wasn’t like they’d never done it before.  When a woman as beautiful as Lora Banes requests a threesome, an intelligent man does not say no – and Alan and Kevin were both _very_ intelligent men.  But this was different.  Lora wasn’t here; if Alan was putting the dots together correctly, Kevin was asking _him not to go back_ to Lora.  At the very least, he was implying that the two of them could have something between them, here on the Grid, where all things were possible.  And as wonderful and warm as this moment was, as much as he was enjoying Flynn’s lips and the hands that were feeling up and down his back, he had to break it and pull back before it went any further.  “It can’t be like that.”

“It’s not real.”  Flynn was using Alan’s own argument against him now as he leaned in to resume the kiss, but Alan stepped away.

“It _is_ real,” Alan returned.  “Just because you’re creating your own universe doesn’t mean you stop being a person when you come here.  Action and emotion don’t stop being real just because the world around you does.  Out there, we’ll still have these memories.  It will complicate things.”  And that was the crux of it.  Flynn turned away in defeat, and Alan’s shoulders slumped slightly with the knowledge that no one was coming out the winner here.  “If you’re not careful, you’re going to start blurring your two worlds together.”

“I think I already have.”  It was a quiet confession that didn’t make a lot of sense to Alan, but he decided not to push it.  Besides, Flynn was already off on another tangent.  “You’re still going to marry her, aren’t you?”

Alan laughed, and a sad smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.  “Yeah.”

“Do you really love her?”

“I do.”

“Then I’ll be happy for you.”  A bit of a guffaw from Flynn, and then he used a single guiding arm to steer Alan out of the office, back out into the digital streets.  If possible, the ground seemed even more formed and solid beneath Alan’s feet than it had when they’d gone up into the tower.  He definitely noticed a bench that hadn’t been there before.  “Come on, man.  It’s time for you to go home.”

They walked mostly in silence back across the Grid.  As they reached the tower, the beacon that would send Alan back home, they were joined again by Tron and Clu.  “It was nice… meeting you… Tron.”  _There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say in a million years_ , Alan thought to himself as he absorbed the Program’s smile and returned an identical one of his own.

“It was my pleasure, Alan-One.”

“Just Alan.”

“It was my pleasure, Just Alan.”

Alan couldn’t help laughing then, and he laughed a bit harder at Tron’s confused expression.  “Clu,” he said after a moment.  “It was wonderful to meet you, too.”

“And you, Alan.”

The discrepancy between the Programs’ grasp of English didn’t escape him.  He narrowed his eyes a bit as Flynn guided him to the portal.  “You’re not coming?” He asked.

“I’ll be along in a bit.  I just need to take care of a few things here.”  A pause.  “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

“No, no.  I’m glad you did.  We should talk more about where this is going, how it affects the company… it could change the world, you know.”

Flynn was a bit giddy at that.  “I know.  We could change the world.”

“Flynn…”

“I know, I know.  Not like that.”

“No.”  Alan gave a look over Flynn’s shoulder to the two Programs, still a short distance away.  “Be… be careful, OK?”

“When have you known me not to be careful?”  Both men laughed at that.  “I will, man.  I promise.”

“And be back in time for my wedding!”

It was meant as a joke, really… mostly.  But Alan was fighting to ignore the twinge of intuition in his gut – the one that said this was a very dangerous road, and he needed to keep a close eye on Kevin Flynn in the real world.

Barely a blink, and he was back in Kevin’s office beneath the arcade.

Lines of code continued to run across the old Apple II screen and Alan watched them, deciphering them like a foreign language.

Flynn was saying goodbye.  _Goodbye for now.  I’ll be back soon_.  But there was something else.  Something in the way he spoke to Tron.  Something in the way—

Alan sighed sadly and turned away from the computer.

_It’s a world where you can have anything you want._   And when Flynn couldn’t have Alan in the real world… how long had this been going on?

It was better that he didn’t know.

 ***

“Alan!  Sam Flynn is on the phone!”

Lora’s voice jolts Alan from his reverie and he scoots back his wheeled office chair to look away from his computer and out into the hall.  “I’ll pick it up in here,” he returns loud enough for her to hear before flinging the door closed and picking up the cordless on his printer stand.  He leans as far back in the chair as he can, kicking his stocking feet up on the desk right next to his keyboard and crossing them at the ankle, one hand running casually through his hair.  “Sam.  It’s late, and a school night.  What are you doing up?”

The beat of the bass behind Sam, and the unmistakable sound of drunk reveling, is enough to clue Alan in even before Sam’s voice comes through.  “Alan,” he says, “Can you come pick me up?”

There is a slightly whiney and tired intonation in the otherwise deep voice of Sam Flynn, whose voice says he can buy alcohol but who is 17 going on 8 when it comes to his decision-making ability.  He’s drunk.  Alan’s heard this voice before, but try as he might, he can’t say no to the kid.  “Where are you?”  A response, equally whiney and tired, and Alan scribbles it down on a nearby post-it note that also says _call Ram; next deposit $5,000 on Wednesday – confirm_.  “I’m on my way.” 


End file.
